WoW – More fun together!

The Levelling Experience: 1-10

As mentioned previously, Reversion and I have rolled alts on Argent Dawn to be part of Single Abstract Noun, the blogger guild. I started a druid, and he started a gnome rogue, and as we levelled 1-10 in separate zones, we started having similar complaints.

It had been a while since we had levelled without heirlooms, or not together, or not as draeni, and while it was not really difficult, it got us talking. So this morning I rolled a draeni paladin and compared the experiences I had with my night elf druid and my draeni paladin.

Parameters:

Classes I know well

No heirlooms, no help beyond my addons (no quest help beside the built in quest helper)

Same level range

Darnassus versus Azuremyst Isle

Experience:

Both zones start off with a “kill some of these critters” quest. Nice and easy – the critters are right there and Blizzard puts your abilities right on the action bar. After that you get a few more quests. I found the Azuremyst quests very nicely sequence, where I could complete all the quests I could pick up at the same time. On the other hand, the Darnassus quests often had me covering the same ground three or more times.

Equipment: in the first five levels, my draeni quests gave me a four slot bag and a fishing pole. I know they’ve increased the drop rate on small bags, and in fact both my alts have full sets of 6 slot bags, but awarding one as a quest reward is a nice touch, and the fishing pole was awesome.

Where to go next: Azuremyst led me by the hand. Darnassus took figuring out.

Mobs: All critters in the 1-5 area are now yellow. The first red mob for my draeni was at the fishing quest when a murloc popped out! I could see a complete newbiew being very surprised by this. Darnassus has several spots where the mob respawn rate seemed bugged and I was hard pressed to get out.

The Cave: All the 1-10 zones seem to have one or two cave complexes where you’ll go in, kill a named guy, and come out. In Darnassus you have a cave full of demons where you kill a guy who turns into a cat, and a barrow where you wander around for eight years looking for four relics. In Azuremyst you have a cave full of nagas where you kill the boss, and a cave full of furbolgs where you kill the named boss, 9 others, and the Kraken hound. The Azuremyst versions were considerably easier and less frustrating. I never did finish the Darnassus version.

Professions: Most professions could be learned at Azure Watch. About the same for the Darnassus hub, There’s no ore in Darnassus of course, while you can learn anything at Azure Watch.

Summing up: a brand new player is going to have a much easier time in the draeni area compared to old world zones. I had some guild members talk about Azuremyst being “hand holding” or “spoonfeeding” and they’re right, but I think Blizzard has realized just how many players come to the game with NO previous MMO experience, heck, often no game experience at all. Before WoW, my major game experience was in Civ II. Not hardly the same. I’d have had a much easier time if the draeni area had been there.

In fact I think they need to make the first ten levels even more user friendly. If you’re still getting used to cameras, looting, and using your abilities, there are a number of things that can be annoying. Even experienced players can miss things when they roll a new class. For instance, we ran with a player last night who didn’t have her paladin res; there’s a quest you have to do at 12 to get it, and if you don’t know that, it’s easy to miss the quest.

After I get to 20 on both alts, I’m going to come back and finish comparing the two sequences. I don’t think it’s as drastic but I do have some really nasty things to say about Loch Modan, designers, and getting eaten by many many mobs at once.

(My two alts are Analogue the druid, and Annalogue the paladin, both on Argent Dawn-US)

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5 Responses

I’m really looking forward to seeing the start areas redone when Cataclysm hits. Here’s hoping the quests are more streamlined and you don’t feel that you are just running backwards and forwards all the time.

I wonder if they’ll redo other old zones as well – Duskwook for example…. running backwards and forwards between the town and the cemetary grew old pretty quickly!

The redone world is what I’m most looking forward to in Cataclysm, and then the new zones. Seeing Azeroth for the first time all over again – can’t wait!

Duskwood is a lot better these days with mounts at 20 although I often just run to Westfall and fly when I’m on that side of the zone, it may be no faster but at least I can go get a drink while I’m on the bird.

Oh god the CAVE! If there was one advice I could give to all young night elves it would be this: never EVER try to find those relics. Seriously. You will only die repeatedly and you’ve got no chance in hell of actually finding them anyway. In the hours you’ll spend lost in that hellhole you could easily get 2-3 levels by doing regular quests.

Ditto for Duskwood – doing that in TBC was a PAIN.

Hmm, looks like low level questing has scarred me :P More on-topic, I’m finding how slow solo questing is compared to pairs. My alt in SAN is barely level 17 and it felt so horribly slow (even though she’s a lock and pretty good at killing stuff). But I rolled a druid/paladin pair with a friend yesterday and the levels seemed to fly by, we got to 7 in a few hours, and that included the running and wasted time (trying to level a paladin in nelf lands is a bad idea because of lack of trainers, so we had to get our asses to Elwynn).

It depends on the class, and where you level. Drop quests are as fast or faster solo; kill quests take less time in a group. They’ve increased the range at which you get credit/xp for a kill so on drop quests we set loot to free-for-all and split up a bit to cover more ground.

Where are you leveling your SAN alt? Are you familiar with the zone? Does that contribute to your slow leveling?

The alt is a blood elf so… I know and don’t know the area. I’ve leveled 2 baby belves before, but I’m an Ally girl, so I’m not quite as familiar with the Horde zones – and I do spend a lot of time lost in Silvermoon.